I like villains because there's something so attractive about a committed person -- they have a plan, an ideology, no read more

I like villains because there's something so attractive about a committed person -- they have a plan, an ideology, no matter how twisted. They're motivated.

An isolated outbreak of virginity is a rash on the face of society. It arouses only pity from the married, read more

An isolated outbreak of virginity is a rash on the face of society. It arouses only pity from the married, and embarrassment from the single.

The aura of the theocratic death penalty for adultery still clings to America, even outside New England, and multiple divorce, read more

The aura of the theocratic death penalty for adultery still clings to America, even outside New England, and multiple divorce, which looks to the European like serial polygamy, is the moral solution to the problem of the itch. Love comes into it too, of course, but in Europe we tend to see marital love as an eternity which encompasses hate and also indifference: when we promise to love we really mean that we promise to honor a contract. Americans, seeming to take marriage with not enough seriousness, are really taking love and sex with too much.

It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual read more

It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.

The mind is no match with the heart in persuasion; constitutionality is no match with compassion.

The mind is no match with the heart in persuasion; constitutionality is no match with compassion.

We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.

We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.

Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.

Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.

A kind and compassionate act is often its own reward.

A kind and compassionate act is often its own reward.

Life has always taken place in a tumult without apparent cohesion, but it only finds its grandeur and its reality read more

Life has always taken place in a tumult without apparent cohesion, but it only finds its grandeur and its reality in ecstasy and in ecstatic love.